Joy in Obedience

Camy here! When I was in college, we had a few couples from the church who would occasionally open their home to us, feed us dinner, talk with us about whatever we wanted. It wasn’t a regular ministry, but we knew they were always there for us if we needed them.

I wanted to give back to the college students at my church in the same way those couples had helped me with my walk with Jesus. So my husband and I recently started having a college Bible study at our home on Sunday around noon. We cook lunch for the students and then have a Bible study lesson. Right now, we’re going through a video Bible study on sex and dating.

This past weekend, I was making some Japanese tea for the students (all of them are at least half Japanese) when it hit me how happy I was to have boisterous college students eating teriyaki meatballs in my living room. Talking about history classes and raunchy coworkers and random things. Coming into the kitchen asking for more food. Barreling through bags of chips and bottles of soda.

But it wasn’t just a happy-happiness, it was a really deep-seated kind of joy that I felt down in my gut. A joy that really had no logical explanation—it was just there. And it filled me entirely. David’s words about cups overflowing came to mind.

I knew, in that moment, that this was what God wanted me to do, to open my home and my heart to these students. I wanted to chat with them about silly things like YouTube videos and about serious things like sex. I wanted to help them grow in their relationships with Jesus. I was filled with joy and a desire to serve the Lord in this way, to be obedient to Him in this way.

Is there something Jesus wants you to do for him? Have you hesitated in going through with it even though you know it’s something God wants? Remember that with obedience comes love and joy. You won’t be disappointed if you keep Jesus’ commands.


Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. Out now is her humorous contemporary romance novel, Single Sashimi, and her romantic suspense, Formula for Danger. In her spare time, she is a staff worker for her church youth group, and she leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service. On her blog, she ponders dogs, knitting and spinning wool, running, Asiana, and other frivolous things. Sign up for her newsletter for giveways!

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Look for Love in the RIGHT Place

“Where is the love that can reach the depth of your pain and pull you out, soothe, comfort, and embrace you? Love that is always forgiving, yet revealing; always protecting, never pushing away; always patient, never jealous; always kind, never rude, irritable, or touchy. Where is the love that does not demand its own way and never stops loving even when you do not love in return or when you do wrong? Love that will not hold a grudge or keep a record of your errors or mistakes, but always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.”

Name one person who meets all of these requirements. Like me you’ve probably had your dreams of love disappointed more times than you care to remember, even by those who you thought would never let you down.

The passage above comes from Jannie Wilcoxson’s book Looking for Love in the Wrong Place, a great Bible study that uses the lives of biblical men and women to address our need for love and our heartbreaking tendency to fill the need in ways that lead to disaster. The stories of Jacob, Rachel and Leah, David and his wives Michal, Abigail and Bathsheba, the woman at the well, and others that I have studied since childhood reminded me that, though times have changed drastically in the past couple thousand years, people haven’t. Since creation each man and woman has wanted to be loved. Even those who love God to the core of our souls allow our passions to lead us down the wrong path. Jannie’s book reminded me also that a perfect love is available even as I fill the aches with second-best substitutes. God offers the love that no human can live up to, and His Word is a living reminder of it.

Look for this study on Amazon, through WinePress Publishing, or at your local Christian bookstore. It might be a great one to go through with a mentor, friend, or prayer partner. I hope that you’ll be challenged, as I was, to dig deeper into God’s Word for more messages of His love and faithfulness.

May His love fill you today,

Jeanette